Michael Bierut, David Carson, Keith Ellis, Carlos Estrada, Keith Gasch, Ben Levitz, and Joe Isaak discuss the final day of the 2017 AIGA Design Conference in Minneapolis with me.
Enjoy.
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The first of our six interviews recorded at HOW Design Live is with none other than Michael Bierut of Pentagram.
We talk about logo and identity design, Command X, Design Observer‘s new podcast – The Observatory, and his upcoming book. Enjoy.
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Rocking it LIVE LIVE LIVE from the show floor — three days ago. Our efforts to bring you the AIGA Make/Think Conference were routed by our shotty server-to-wi-fi connection at the convention center and hotel. Everything else worked great, but when it came to uploading the files, we tasted bitter defeat time and time again. Eventually the stress became to great, and we decided to bring this show back and launch it from the comfort of our own studio chairs.
This show was taped directly following the second day’s (sure it says Day One up there, but our number system is not encumbered by facts) festivities, and with Steve Hartman and Justin Ahrens running the room while we spoke to the passers-by, we crammed an amazing amount of talent into these 25 minutes. In no particular order:
So give it a listen — more shows are coming this week!
Download The Reflex Blue Show with Nate Voss and Donovan Beery, AIGA Make/Think Special: DAY ONE or click here to subscribe to The Reflex Blue Show from the iTunes Music Store.
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Apologies for the big, long Labor-Day break. I spent it working, which is, as they say, a problem I’d like to have, but sitting down to do today’s comic, which was meant to be posted last Friday when this kind of news was still relatively new, felt like going back to Calculus after spending a whole summer forgetting how to do it.
If you missed it, Michael Bierut, perhaps the nicest design mega-star (again, if there even is such a thing), brought two of my worlds together when he announced on the Pentagram blog that his team handled the new iteration of the Guitar Hero logo. This, of course, includes an entire Guitar-Hero typeface design, and endless visual interpretations that seem to center on fire and rock. Brand New, of course, has a great dissection of it as well.
Bierut gets the credit, and I really don’t have a problem with that, but the actual designer on the project was a fellow by the name of Joe Marianek, and the typeface itself was designed by Kai Salmela. The common problem with working at Pentagram and not being Michael Bierut or Paula Scher (or any of the other 18 or 19 partners) is that you often get overlooked by the masses when you do something awesome. The way around this, or so I’ve heard, is to start four or five of the most successful design websites ever, and even then you still have to quit to get noticed.
But it’s still no Rock Band.
And so DO has left its roots as a blog behind it forever, turning into, as a friend described it, another Communication Arts site. I’m to someone that sounds like a compliment.
As far as websites go, I’m much more interested in this, which is the comic I would do if I were smarter, funnier, and still working day-in and day-out in advertising. I’m appalled at myself for not discovering Business Guys On Business Trips sooner. If you want an absolutely accurate look at my life in the industry, right up until the point I decided to work for myself, you will find it there and begin to understand. After clicking through about four or five pages I was shocked to see there was not an appalling situation in there I hadn’t suffered though. Noting a regular, weekly schedule, I added it to my bookmarks, and look forward to the next chapter with a malicious glee.
